Selected Works of Karl Marx

epresented by the value of its product and labour time by the magnitude of that value. Theseformulæ, which bear it stamped upon them in unmistakable letters that they belong to a state ofsociety, in which the process of production has the mastery over man, instead of beingcontrolled by him, such formulæ appear to the bourgeois intellect to be as much a self-evidentnecessity imposed by Nature as productive labour itself. Hence forms of social production thatpreceded the bourgeois form, are treated by the bourgeoisie in much the same way as theFathers of the Church treated pre-Christian religions.To what extent some economists are misled by the Fetishism inherent in commodities, or by theobjective appearance of the social characteristics of labour, is shown, amongst other ways, bythe dull and tedious quarrel over the part played by Nature in the formation of exchange value.Since exchange value is a definite social manner of expressing the amount of labour bestowedupon an object, Nature has no more to do with it, than it has in fixing the course of exchange.The mode of production in which the product takes the form of a commodity, or is produceddirectly for exchange, is the most general and most embryonic form of bourgeois production. Ittherefore makes its appearance at an early date in history, though not in the same predominatingand characteristic manner as now-a-days. Hence its Fetish character is comparatively easy to beseen through. But when we come to more concrete forms, even this appearance of simplicityvanishes. Whence arose the illusions of the monetary system? To it gold and silver, whenserving as money, did not represent a social relation between producers, but were natural objectswith strange social properties. And modern economy, which looks down with such disdain onthe monetary system, does not its superstition come out as clear as noon-day, whenever it treatsof capital? How long is it since economy discarded the physiocratic illusion, that rents grow outof the soil and not out of society?But not to anticipate, we will content ourselves with yet another example relating to thecommodity form. Could commodities themselves speak, they would say: Our use value may bea thing that interests men. It is no part of us as objects. What, however, does belong to us asobjects, is our value. Our natural intercourse as commodities proves it. In the eyes of each otherwe are nothing but exchange values. Now listen how those commodities speak through themouth of the economist.“Value” – (i.e., exchange value) “is a property of things, riches” – (i.e., use value) “of man.Value, in this sense, necessarily implies exchanges, riches do not.” “Riches” (use value) “arethe attribute of men, value is the attribute of commodities. A man or a community is rich, a pearlor a diamond is valuable...” A pearl or a diamond is valuable as a pearl or a diamond.So far no chemist has ever discovered exchange value either in a pearl or a diamond. Theeconomic discoverers of this chemical element, who by-the-bye lay special claim to criticalacumen, find however that the use value of objects belongs to them independently of theirmaterial properties, while their value, on the other hand, forms a part of them as objects. Whatconfirms them in this view, is the peculiar circumstance that the use value of objects is realisedwithout exchange, by means of a direct relation between the objects and man, while, on theother hand, their value is realised only by exchange, that is, by means of a social process. Whofails here to call to mind our good friend, Dogberry, who informs neighbour Seacoal, that, “Tobe a well-favoured man is the gift of fortune; but reading and writing comes by Nature.”